Thursday, December 28, 2017

Making a geogif with QGIS

In case you would like to make geogifs using QGIS, Alasdair Rae has recently created a really good tutorial.  Topi Tjukanov has also written a post showing the step-by-step process of how you can use QGIS Time Manager to create a stunning geogif like this one below. 

obs. Alasdair and Topi have worked in many other great projects and they are extremely generous, often sharing their data and code openly. These two are definitely worth following on Twitter.

5 hours of train GPS points in Finland
credit: Topi Tjukanov 

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Chart of the Day: socket patterns worldwide

via Carlos Goes



Apparently, the image has a few minor errors including Uruguay, Malaysia, Indonesian, Switzerland. I guess this does not change the main message here.

credit: xkcd

Friday, December 22, 2017

The impact of international long-distance flights on the spatial allocation of economic activity and inequality

Very interesting paper on the intersection of economic geography, development and transport economics. From a quick glance at the paper, I believe it could probably bring some interesting insights into network science as well.


Campante, F., & Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (n.d.). Long-Range Growth: Economic Development in the Global Network of Air Links. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. doi:10.1093/qje/qjx050

Abstract
We study the impact of international long-distance flights on the global spatial allocation of economic activity. To identify causal effects, we exploit variation due to regulatory and technological constraints which give rise to a discontinuity in connectedness between cities at a distance of 6,000 miles. We show that improving an airport’s position in the network of air links has a positive effect on local economic activity, as captured by satellite-measured night lights. We find that air links increase business links, showing that the movement of people fosters the movement of capital. In particular, this is driven mostly by capital flowing from high-income to middle-income (but not low-income) countries. Taken together, our results suggest that increasing interconnectedness induces links between businesses and generates economic activity at the local level, but also gives rise to increased spatial inequality locally, and potentially globally.

ps. The authors are also on Twitter in case you would like to follow their work more closely. Campante, F., & Yanagizawa-Drott


credit: Campante & Yanagizawa-Drott, 2017

Friday, December 15, 2017

Population density across Europe

Nice little geogif created by Alasdair Rae.


Tuesday, December 12, 2017

High-resolution data sets on global man-made impervious surfaces and urban extents

In 2012, we posted about a big research project on global forecasts of urban expansion and its environmental impacts, by Karen C. Seto and her lab at Yale. On a related topic, SEDAC (a NASA data center hosted at CIESIN in Columbia University) has released two new high-resolution data sets that some of you might find useful for your own research:

  1. Global Human Built-up And Settlement Extent for the target year 2010, derived from global 30m Landsat satellite data

  2. Global Man-made Impervious Surface for the target year 2010, derived from global 30m Landsat satellite data

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Social inequalities and brute luck







Sunday, December 3, 2017

call for papers: Complexity Science and Public Policy

The journal Complexity has opened a call for papers for a special issue on applications of complexity science for public policy.  Thanks Bernardo Furtado for the pointer and co-editing the special issue

This Special Issue aims at collecting both novel research and reviews on Public Policy Modeling and Applications, showing not only the cross-disciplinary nature of the field but also how rigorous scientific studies have already contributed towards understanding the complexity of social systems and to policy making.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:
  • Complex social systems and applications in public policy
  • Complexity methods and analysis for policymakers
  • The effects of governance in complex social systems
  • Management of financial networks, real estate, and financing spillovers
  • Smart cities, mobility, and flows in complex urban environments
  • Dynamic risk management in complex scenarios
  • Analyses that explicitly include political-spatial governance boundaries
  • Design and analysis of complex sociotechnical systems for public services

photo credit: Armando G Alonso